Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 43:172 (Oct 1886)
Article: The Eschatology Of The New England Divines
Author: Frank Hugh Foster

BSac 43:172 (Oct 1886) p. 711

The Eschatology Of The New England Divines

Rev. Frank H. Foster

III.

The first generation of the New England divines, Edwards, Bellamy, and Hopkins, worked in close co-operation with one another, and, though independent thinkers, agreed with one another to a remarkable extent. The younger Edwards, the pupil of Bellamy, was also a pupil, and later the friend and co-laborer, of Hopkins. He might well be called a “Hopkinsian;” but, inasmuch as Hopkins’ “System” was published after Dr. Edwards had become well known as an independent thinker, I have chosen to regard him as the founder of another branch of the school, for a time parallel with Hopkins and those who took their ideas more immediately from him. Certainly in the department of eschatology Hopkins has worked out the subject in its speculative aspects more thoroughly than Dr. Edwards. The simple fact that we possess his theological views in the form of a system, and are thus able to study his eschatology in its bearings upon the related doctrines, enables us to conceive and state it more perfectly. Were the two men in all other respects to be regarded as contemporaries, this fact alone would locate Hopkins at a later point in the history of our doctrine. We come, then, for our next study to—

V. Samuel Hopkins

A word or two of preface as to the man himself is necessary before we pass to his doctrines. He was a good man. His own phrase to express the sum total of virtue was “disinterested benevolence,” and he lived it as faith-

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fully as he preached it. He secured the personal esteem and love of those of his neighbors who differed most widely from him in his theological views. His great mental trait was that which was so clearly marked upon his daily life that he received the nick-name Old Honesty. He was humble, and honest in expressing a depreciatory opinion of his own services. He was honest in his theological convictions, and thorough in carrying them out into their manifold ramifications. So honest was he, that he did not stop always to select language not likely unnecessarily to offend. He expected men to study his books till they got the great sweep and purpose of the whole, and interpret single expressions by his general meaning. If one will read him thus, and do him the justice now and then to re-state his thought in modern styles of expression, the grandeur of his fearless consistency will impress, as much as the deep solicitude and heart-searching faithfulness of this preacher-theologian will move and profit in the reading.

Hopkins’ views are briefly stated in his System.1 The older Calvinism is not friendly to the idea of...